Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles Beginner Tips

I love me a good RPG turn-based, tactical RPG. Give me a deep character and skill system with the ability to create my own builds and strategies amongst a roster of characters and thoughtful, challenging combat, and I’m a happy guy. Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles is a beautiful semi-remake of the original 1995 title, complete with all its depth and reasonable difficulty (seriously, though, it’s known for being tough). If this is your first time in Ivalice, you might find yourself unprepared for certain fights or uncertain where to start; I’m here to help, my friends! Take a gander at this lovely list of tips that will prepare you for anything that comes your way, without straight-up solving the game for you.

1. Get the JP (Job Points) Boost passive bonus for all your characters. You’ll have to unlock this skill using the Squire class, which is conveniently available at the beginning of the game. It is arguably the most useful ability in the game if you want to make the most of your time grinding to unlock abilities, and you will have to grind for JP to access the most useful abilities for each job. EXPERT TIP: switch this passive out for something else when jumping into story encounters; you don’t need extra JP in these fights, you need your characters at their strongest and most capable.

2. To make the most of grinding in random encounters, consider using low-damage abilities like Throw Stone to milk JP without killing the last enemy. Restore that enemy’s health with magic or items to keep them alive and soak up all that JP. It’s not the most fun thing to do, but you’ll find your characters can easily have hundreds of JP after a relatively short bout. Make the most of your grind, friends.

3. Save before every story encounter. These tend to be much tougher than random encounters, and some locations launch back-to-back fights without an ability to grind in between. Consider this your main save file that you can always go back to if things are too tough or if you otherwise make a mistake.

4. In those sequential story encounters, if you are given a chance to save, do not overwrite your main save. Seriously, some of these fights are very tough if you’re unprepared, so it is very easy to trap oneself in an unwinnable fight, therefore forcing a complete game restart. 

5. Pay attention to brave and faith stats. Characters with higher brave do more physical damage, so are more effective with classes like Knight and Ninja. Higher faith leads to higher magic damage (or healing) for spells from classes like Black Mage, White Mage, and Summoner. Keep in mind faith goes both ways; a character with low faith will do low spell damage, but will also receive less spell damage or healing from spells. If you’re wondering why your Flare is doing to little to that one enemy, perhaps their faith is low. A fun exploit; reduce a character’s faith to 0, and they are immune to spell damage. How about that?

6. Steal stuff. Particularly during story encounters. You can easily procure gear earlier than shops offer it, saving you money and giving your team an edge, and it’s one of the only ways to get some of the rarer equipment. You can analyze enemies to see what they have equipped, but make sure to check that the enemy doesn’t have the Sticky Hands ability, which prevents theft. Even if that weapon isn’t juicy, stealing it means your enemy can only attack with their bare hands, transforming classes like Knight, Dragoon, Ninja, or Samurai into cuddly teddy bears (skills that require specific equipment, like the Samurai’s Bushido ability, also become useless!). With that said, don’t use the Knight’s equipment break skills on enemies with equipment you want. 

7. Character’s stat increases are dependent on the job they have when they level up. Someone who’s been a Knight for the last 30 levels will have far more health than someone who’s leveled up as a Black Mage. This is somewhat under-the-hood and really only matters if you’re a min-maxer, but it does mean you could minimize how many character levels someone gets in a class you only have them in to unlock a new class or to get a specific job ability. If this is a bit much for you, ignore it, it’s not a game-breaker.

8. Unique story characters, like Agrias, Mustadio, and the mighty Cidolfus, have higher stats than your cookie-cutter party members. Their Squire class is also replaced by a class unique to them, giving them some powerful and unique abilities. These characters can easily supplant your other party members mid-to-late game, unless you want to give yourself the challenge of not using those unique characters. I recommend trying that on a second playthrough though, because if this is your first Tactics foray, you’ll want all the help you can get. Expert Tip: do not underestimate the awesomeness that is Mustadio.

9. Mix and match job abilities to maximize each party members’ utility. Want a dual-wielding Knight? Learn the dual-wield ninja passive and slap that puppy on, no matter what class you are. Want to pump up your monk’s HP with heavy armor? Use the knight’s heavy armor passive. Your ninja can cast time magic, and that geomancer can double as your long-range healer with white magic or throw item. Don’t underestimate mobility skills that increase your lateral and vertical move ranges, which can increase the threat posed by your melee-based characters. In short, mix things up.

10. Don’t let characters die. When a character loses all Hit Points (HP), they will pass out. That’s fine. A counter of 3 turns begins ticking down to their permanent death as they bleed out. That’s not okay. Losing a character permanently is painful, not only because you might lose some sweet gear, but especially considering the amount of time it takes to build these suckers up across all the jobs. If you lose one, reload that aforementioned main save file and give the fight another go. 

There are so many more tricks, strategies, and secrets to discover, so keep your eyes and mind open, but with these tips you’re ready to tackle all the wonderfulness that is Final Fantasy Tactics. Enjoy, and watch those flanks!

If you have any tips of your own, feel free to add them below for the community!

Video Gamers Hawai'i: Bringing Cause and Comraderie to the Gaming Community

When we think of technology, what often comes to mind is a type of invisible connectedness, an infinite web or abstract database of communications, texts, emails, and video. Gaming sessions are among these distant translucent connections, allowing hundreds of millions of people all over the world to compete and cooperate together. Instead of sharing a couch to play games with friends, we share servers. The gaming community continues to grow and evolve in part because of these instantaneous, distant interactions, but what happens to the old ways of playing, occupying the same physical space? As the gaming community at-large grows and connects on the interwebs, what of local gaming communities? Does the affordance of our technology negate the need for personal connection?

In Honolulu, Keith Limos is a man attempting to feed and revive that need for good ‘ole couch cooperative play (co-op) and split-screen competition, the days when we sat next to our friends for hours trading blows and jests. He founded the non-profit Video Gamers Hawaii in 2014 to bring the Hawai’i gaming community together via Facebook. At first, this was to find other people with which to play Bungie’s Destiny, and over time VGH began to display posts about new games coming out, different genres, and even movies. The vision of VGH changed to the point that Keith recognized a shift, that VGH was “like a Maxim magazine,” they “have a little bit of everything.”

“In the long term, we want to reach outside of Hawaii,” Keith told me. “IGN and Gamespot, if you read how they first started, they started off in a garage talking story about games, like us with Destiny. If anything, we want to end up like that. We’re like them, be invited to events, do stuff for their gaming community.” IGN and GameStop started in a garage. Now they're industry standards. VGH would like to follow a similar path towards recognition but for the purpose of community service and charity rather than profit.

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A very cheery fellow, Keith Limos. Putting his heart out there for the gaming community.

With the online community growing in the following years, Keith and crew pushed for involvement through events of their own. In 2015, the Hawaii Video Gaming League, another non-profit gaming organization dedicated to bringing the community together with games like Street Fighter, invited VGH to participate in the Gamer’s Expo Hawaii where they set up a fighting game competition with Killer Instinct and Mortal Combat on four screens. The challenge, Keith discovered, was that he “didn’t realize how much of a core Street Fighter and Marvel vs Capcom had.” HVGL already supported these games at their events, and VGH wanted to bring different titles, but their popularity in the community proved to be less pervasive. Two people turned out to compete on Killer Instinct, for instance, while around six participated with Mortal Kombat. An additional challenge was that though there’s a great deal of vocal support in the community for these events, when it came to participation, there were no bodies:

“Sometimes we throw things out there, [they] want to do this or that, and they’re interested, and they don’t show up. Which is not cool in my opinion, we put down our time and money, [we need them] to show up and let us know they support us. They don’t show up. The thing about gamers...online gaming kinda killed the videogame gathering. Arcade scenes are dead now. In my opinion, playing in person is the best way to play with people...Online gaming, don’t get me wrong, I do it too, but if you can’t show up to an event ‘cause you don’t want to leave the house, that’s not cool.”

VGH persisted by diving into online streaming, broadcasting live gameplay for entertainment or to garner support for a cause. Keith streamed for Extra Life, a non-profit organization that unites gamers all over the world for 24-hour gaming marathons to generate funds for Children’s Medical Network Hospitals. He encountered the same participation problem he had with the live event. After streaming, the dollar amount raised was a big fat zero, so Keith donated his own money. “I think VGH started rising after that,” he told me, “we started talking about how we can change the scene.”

Then came the story that brought VGH to my attention. In 2017 VGH began a giveaway for the community members, now numbered close to 1700. The Nintendo NES mini was popular and expensive, with scalpers charging “5, 6, $700,” so VGH sold one at wholesale price--about $60--to a community member drawn at random. Another community member was inspired by this to donate their own NES Mini to VGH. Though everyone in the community was excited to get their hands on the rare device, VGH decided to donate it to Kapiolani Medical Center. They dropped it off, along with plenty of collectables like Funko pops, to incredulous hospital employees. “They were like, ‘oh my gosh, are you sure you want to give this to us?’ They knew how rare these were.” And this year, VGH is planning on doing it again, but involving the entire community via a toy and game drive.

VGH continues to grow, a grassroots effort to unite a community becoming an avenue to benefit larger communities around them in need. “Our future goal for VGH is to turn ourselves into a non-profit organization, try and get some sponsors to represent us.” Success builds over time; in March, VGH organized a benefit for Planned Parenthood with a 24-hour gaming gathering with multiple systems, and this time a good number of people showed. Lucas Nakao, Keith’s right-hand man who offered his home for the event space, commented that they might require a $5 donation because “people came and hung out, but didn’t necessarily donate. I’m providing the place, so if you’re coming, you should at least donate.” Again, the challenge of garnering commitment from the community is clear, so it’s my hope (along with theirs) that establishing a baseline that way helps their causes. Even with a lack of donations from many of their participants, they raised $180. The potential for more is evident, and they’re pushing to meet higher goals, both charitably and in membership.

VGH is a great example of a Honolulu community reaching out to unite for the benefit of others and to bring gamers into spaces where they can shake hands and recognize faces. Charity gaming marathons have become a successful avenue to promote causes and charities, with Extra Life raising over $30 million since its inception in 2008. If you’re interested in supporting the group, find them on facebook here, and check their event listings with weekly competitive game nights at Franky Fresh and  Osoyami Bar and Grill in Honolulu. Get out there, meet some gamers, and give back to the community!